What constitutes “Legitimate Leadership”?

This may be the most controversial blog I have written to date but this is NOT an intentionally political submission. I will always attempt to honor the primary focus of this blog which is leadership development and personal effectiveness but with the death of Fidel Castro, it has me thinking out loud about the age-old debate among leadership thinkers about what constitutes “legitimate leadership”?

First, and I want to make this perfectly clear. Whatever you believe constitutes legitimate economic/political system then that as your opinion and I will not criticize it. Quite frankly there has been far too much “political shaming” recently and I am not going to play!

To begin and to be fair, the Batista regime that ruled Cuba prior to Castro’s rise was no prize. It was corrupt and had its own abuses that caused misery to many. With that being said, however, the harsh facts are that Castro became a brutal dictator in every sense of the word. According to Amnesty International that tracks human rights abuses. Castro and his brother along with their associates are responsible for the imprisonment, torture, and murder of thousands of Cuban people whose only crime was disagreeing with them. These brave individuals are often referred to as “Prisoners of Conscience” and this practice continues to this day. Further, living in South Florida, I have heard story after story from families whose relations were forced to surrender their homes and all their possessions before they were allowed to leave Cuba. Those without means who want to escape were forced to do so on anything that would float to cross the Florida Straights to reach America.

But the fundamental question remains, are dictators leaders? In other words, is dictatorship a legitimate form of leadership? I once had the opportunity to hear a faculty member from the prestigious Jepson School of Leadership at the University of Richmond speak to the very issue. His classic example was on Adolf Hitler. Like Castro, Hitler provided many social supports in Nazi Germany. Similarly, both men were larger than life and were fiery speakers. To some they even deserved celebrity status but in my last blog I warned against confusing celebrity about ability, or in this case, humanity.

In final analysis, however, there is nothing to respect or emulate in their example. You see the faculty member’s conclusion was that leadership carries a moral imperative and I agree. True leaders understand that the means never justify the ends. They understand that people and their freedoms should be paramount. Therefore, it is my belief dictators are not leaders, they are dictators.

In his address to the United Nations, leadership expert and author John Maxwell shared the rubric to the assembly what would reveal any leader of principal or a legitimate leader if they could answer the following in the affirmative.

• Can I trust you?
• Do you care for me?
• Can you help me?

So, what are we to do? Those of you who lead others from wherever you are? I would encourage you to do something! Be worthy of trust . . . care . . . help!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact! Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

What is your “pyramid for success”?

Legendary UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden, is known as much for his mentorship and leadership off the court as his success on the court which was considerable. With many national championships to his credit, this incredible leader encouraged players to focus more on the process it took to win versus the prize of winning itself. This got me thinking out loud about the contrast between his philosophy to that of the win at any cost, high dollar programs that collegiate sports have since become. I think the primary difference is that he started with the foundation first and built from there.

I recently had the opportunity to view a great video from SUCCESS magazine that featured footage of Coach himself along with achievers he mentored and influenced which included other famous coaches, entertainers, authors, etc. One telling moment is that he started every season with a team meeting where he would teach players to right way to put on their shoes and socks. Really!?!? These were young men that have been doing that activity most of their lives but Coach Wooden always taught lessons on two levels. The obvious level (i.e. if you do not put your shoes on right, you will get blisters which will affect your play) and the deeper level (i.e. what is foundational to success in life?).

You see Coach was pulling from his Pyramid of Success. Even though it took several years to develop, he eventually created a list of characteristics, attributes, and attitudes that he believed would lead to the pinnacle – Competitive Advantage. To get there, however, you had to have a firm foundation so Coach placed Industriousness and Enthusiasm as the cornerstones upon which everything else is built. Coach Wooden knew that success in any endeavor in life was an inside job! In other words, you had to work on yourself first before you hope to have success in life later.

A Google search will reveal a number of images of Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success and I encourage you to take a look. Along with that, I encourage you to build your own pyramid. A simple process can include:

• VALUES - what are your primary values that you build your life upon or that guide you? These are foundational.
• ATTRIBUTES – next, what characteristics or qualities are important for you to have? It is OK if they are not completely developed in you as long as they are qualities that you strive for.
• TALENTS/SKILLS – what talents and capacities are important to you? Remember, you always work to your strengths so this list should be focused and finite.
• SUCCESS DEFINED – how to you eventually define success? For Coach Wooden it was Competitive Advantage. For me it is IMPACT. This should appear at very top of your pyramid, the primary thing you strive for!

Remember, this is YOUR pyramid. This is how you uniquely define success. As incredibly successful UCLA gymnastics coach Valorie Field shares, “be YOUR best, not someone else’s best.” Just to do your very best, was what was important to Coach Wooden and I agree. If you do your very best, then I promise you at the end of the day it will be more than good enough. In fact, it will be great! Coach often encouraged others to “make every day a masterpiece” and I do the same!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact! Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

We Need Better than “Just Good Enough” Leaders!

Now from the title of this week’s blog, you would assume it concerns the most recent U.S. election. You would be right. You might also think that I have picked a side. You would be wrong! But the events of the past week do have me thinking out loud about the state of leadership here in the U.S. and around the world.

I have had the pleasure of hearing the world’s leading expert on leadership, John Maxwell, teach in person on several occasions. He often states that we are in a “leadership crises” both here and abroad, I am prone to agree. Regardless of your political persuasion, you must have the intellectual honesty to admit that both of the eventual candidates had serious character deficiencies. Therefore, when most Americans went to the ballot box they voted for their “just good enough” candidate.

So how did we get here? Certainly, there were quality candidates on both sides of the political spectrum at the early stages of the process that did not have such baggage. They were earnestly sincere in their beliefs and had a track record of honest leadership. I think part of it is that often we confuse celebrity with ability or perhaps notoriety with integrity. The sad truth is that the “cult of personality” is alive and well in modern society which often disappoints. The outcome is that I believe that with some exceptions on both sides of the aisle, our best is not in Washington, DC. Even though there are great men and women leaders who would be imminently qualified, who would want to expose themselves and their families to the level of “no holds barred” destructive scrutiny that is pervasive in most campaigns? The result is that those in office, tend to stay in office well beyond their shelf life!

Whereas I have no clear fixes for the system as it currently is, I do have some criteria for what would constitute EXCELLENT leadership. Notice I did not say perfect because there is no such thing. As John Maxwell shares, we should practice Healthy Hypocrisy where it is OK if your words and deeds do not always MATCH UP as long as they eventually CATCH UP! But I think we can and should do better than “just good enough” leadership both within ourselves and the leaders we elect.

• We need excellent leaders that focus on the GREATER GOOD versus the NARROW INTEREST
• We need excellent leaders that consider the NEEDS OF THE MANY versus the DESIRES OF THE VOTING BLOCK
• We need excellent leaders that lead from the perspective of the LONG WAY versus the NEXT ELECTION
• We need excellent leaders that understand COLLABORATION is more productive than CONFRONTATION
• We need excellent leaders that are PROBLEM SOLVERS versus CRISES PRODUCERS
• We need excellent leaders who understand the BENEFITS of UNITING people far outweighs the UTILITY of DIVIDING people
• We need excellent leaders that know decisions can be YES, AND propositions versus just the EITHER, OR ELSE or WIN/LOSE ultimatums.

On second thought, perhaps that is how we fix the system. Maybe if we expect ourselves and others to be “more than adequate” leaders versus “just good enough” and if enough of you step up to leadership roles, then maybe we can create a system that works!

Remember that the name of my firm is based on the fact that leadership is an OUT LOUD proposition. So, find your voice because you have something to say!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact! Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

What will be the finest hour of your leadership?

If you believe as I do, you are pretty disappointed in what the entertainment industry produces these days. Let’s face it, if you are over a certain age, you are not in Hollywood’s demographic! But every once in a while, there is an exception. The Finest Hours depicts one of the most famous rescues in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard and left me much to think out loud about in terms of what leaders must eventually do.

Starring Chris Pine as Coast Guardsmen Bernie Webber, this real-life adventure is set in the early 1950’s when the tanker SS Pendleton becomes sheared in half during a brutal nor’easter off Cape Cod. Weber is asked to take a small boat and crew and attempt a rescue for the surviving tanker crew. The chances of success are slim and just getting to the ship in the dangerous sea conditions is doubtful. Weber, who is portrayed as having his own doubts about his abilities and his own crew’s chances for survival goes out anyway and in the heroic tradition of the U.S. Coast Guard simply states, “we have to go out, but there is no rule about coming back.”

Now in all practicality, you will never face such a dramatic moment in your leadership tenure but this movie reveals that leaders eventually have to make the hard decision. The courageous decision. The decision that no one else seems willing to make. This can include things like:

Initiating a needed change in your organization or community.

Addressing a toxic person or culture.

Taking a leap of faith that will change your life!

Believe it or not you will have many of such opportunities as your leadership and responsibilities grow. And in the spirit of “you have to go out but you don't have to come back”, these times will be your finest hours! The times when you took a breath and stepped forward into commitment! The times you did the hard thing, the uncomfortable thing, the risky thing. The time when you did not kick the can down the road and let it be someone else’s problem.

It has been said there are no great men or women, just ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances and did what had to be done. So, you see, being a courageous leader requires no specials skills or abilities, just a WILLINGNESS TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact! Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

First Job? New Job? On-Board Yourself!

Despite recent progress, research and “social listening” data reveal that new hires report insufficient on-boarding processes across industries. As someone who has held at least 3 “newly created” positions in his career, this got me thinking out loud about my own experiences and applying that to how millennials starting their first job or others starting new jobs can on-board themselves!

Let’s face it, starting a new role can be very complex. Not only do you need to understand the particulars of your new job, there are complex socio-political aspects within the organization that need to be negotiated. Further, it is critical that you understand the subtle aspects of the organization and it would be highly advisable to enlist the help of those that have experience with the organization to guide you through and perhaps avoid some early pitfalls! To that end, you may want to consider the following 4 phase process to help you approach a new role in a methodical manner.

Based loosely on Nancy Schlossberg’s Transition Theory, the phases include:

Orientation – this is the formal and informal process of learning about the policies and procedures of the organization. If you are lucky, the organization will provide a formal new employee orientation session but the information provided will be very limited and mostly centered on content required for compliance. You need to go further, however. Set up informational interviews with ALL direct reports and as many of their teams as possible. Find out what matters to them so that you can matter to them. Interview supervisors to guide you through the politically sensitive issues and relationships. Meet with colleagues and others that will have impact on you work.

Acclimation – this requires more of a deeper dive into the organizational culture. Attend any and all company-wide meetings. Make sure to read statements from leadership and make sure you are familiar with all mission, vision and values statements. If there are strategic planning documents available or board of director minutes available, make sure you are conversant with this content. Finally, make sure to attend any service or social events the organization sponsors so that you can meet many people in a more relaxed and informal atmosphere.

Integration – integration is directed toward mastering the critical relationships and procedures closest to your role. The main goal is to be as effective as possible as soon as possible. Clerical staff and other administrative personnel will be great resources as to how to get things done correctly without causing them more work (which you never want to do!!). During this time, you will also want to be in an established rhythm you’re your own team and that by this phase they clearly know your expectations but that you also know theirs! This is also the phase when you want to start to understand how other parts of the organization interact with yours. Also, if the organizations offers a mentoring or coaching program, take full advantage of the opportunity. If not, then find your own! Finally, this is the phase when you are checking in with your supervisor to make sure you are clear on their expectations and that you are directing efforts in the right direction.

Innovation – finally, the last phase of this initial on-boarding is start to discover where you can make new and positive contributions. Using the talents and skills that you clearly have combined with the extensive research you have done in the first 3 phases, now is the time to start being a difference maker or at least identifying points of entry. This innovation can include but not be limited to streamlining processes, opening lines of communication with your team, providing a professional development opportunity, or suggesting a new product or service.

Clearly, the activities suggest above will NOT be covered in organizationally provided on-boarding activities so you will need to lead yourself during this important time. This is where you should take the extra time and effort to take ownership of your entre into the organization and start adding value as soon as possible. Trust me, this may earn you some quizzical looks and it may take a while but nothing pleases people more as when you demonstrate an active and sincere interest in what they do and how you can make their work better!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact! Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical in order to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc